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A false allegation of child sexual abuse is an
accusation that a person committed one or more acts of child sexual abuse when in reality there
was no perpetration of abuse by the accused person as alleged. Such
accusations can be brought by the victim, or by another person on
the alleged victim's behalf. Studies of child abuse allegations
suggest that the overall rate of false accusation is low, less than
10% as approximated based on multiple studies. Of the allegations
determined to be false, only a small portion originated with the
child, the studies showed; most false allegations originated with
an adult bringing the accusations on behalf of a child, and of
those, a large majority occurred in the context of divorce and child-custody battles.

Types of false allegations

When there is insufficient supporting evidence to determine whether
an accusation is true or false, it is described as
"unsubstantiated" or "unfounded". Accusations that are determined
to be false based on corroborating evidence are divided into three
categories:

An allegation that is completely false in that the events that
were alleged did not occur;

An allegation that describes events that did occur, but were
perpetrated by an individual who is not accused, and in which the
accused person is innocent. When a child makes this type of
allegation it is termed "perpetrator substitution";

An allegation that is partially true and partially false, in
that it mixes descriptions of events that actually happened with
other events that did not occur.

A false allegation can occur as the result of intentional lying on
the part of the accuser; or unintentionally, due to a confabulation, either arising spontaneously
due to mental illness or resulting
from suggestive questioning, including "both intentional and
unintentional coaching, misinterpretation of events, poor
interviewing techniques". Researchers Poole and Lindsay suggested
in 1997 applying separate labels to the two concepts, proposing the
term "false allegations" be used specifically when the accuser is
aware they are lying, and "false suspicions" for the wider range of
false accusations in which suggestive questioning may have been
involved.

Prevalence

Denial of child sexual abuse by the accused, or by others, is
common and its reality is not easily accepted. Reporting rates may
also be substantially below actual rates of abuse as many victims
do not disclose their abuse, which may result in an
overrepresentation of false allegations due to the inaccurate
estimation of acutal cases of abuse. Of the millions of reports of
child sexual abuse each year to
state protective agencies in the USA (including both substantiated
and unsubstantiated reports), there is no formal determination as
to what portion of those represent false allegations. Findings of
multiple studies performed between 1987 and 1995 suggested that the
rate of false allegations ranged from a low of 6% to a high of 35%
of reported child sexual abuse cases. Experts have argued that the
reason for the wide range of differences in the rates resulted from
different criteria used in various studies. In particular, a lower
rate was found in studies that considered false allegations to be
based on intentional lying, whereas the higher rates were reported
in studies that also added unintentional false allegations
resulting from suggestive questioning. A meta-analysis conducted in
Mikkelson et al. (1992) stated that false allegations are
"statistically uncommon," occurring in 2-10% of cases.

In one paper, it was found that the frequency of false allegations
as reported by emergency room
staff was six percent. The same paper noted a that false
retractions in cases where abuse actually occurred are common.
False retractions of accusations by children who have been abused
are suggested to occur for one or more of several reasons: out of
shame or embarrassment, fear of being sent to a foster home, due to
the reaction of adults leading them to feel their behavior was
"wrong" or "bad", a desire to protect the perptrator who may be a
close family member, fear of destroying the family, coaching by an
adult family member insisting the child withdraw the accusation,
and more. False retractions are less common when the child receives
timely and appropriate support following the statement of the
allegation. Other workers have shown false allegation of incest
allegations to be as low as eight percent. A 1989 study examining
allegations in United
States child protection offices found that ranges of false
allegations (as determined by social workers) to vary between
1.7-2.7% in pre-school children, 8-12% in adolescents 5-8%
overall. False reports are more common in custody disputes.
Children appear to rarely make up false allegations of their own
accord but will make false allegations if coercively questioned by
individuals who believe abuse has occurred but refuse to accept
children's statements that they were not abused (as was common
practice during the satanic ritual
abusemoral panic).

Effect on the child and the accused

Allegations of sexual abuse can be inherently traumatic, even when
false. A person falsely charged with sexual abuse often faces
numerous problems of their own. The heinous nature of the crime
leveled at them often evokes a overwhelming sense of betrayal. In
highly publicized cases, the general public has a strong tendency
to summarily assume the accused is guilty, leading to very serious
social stigma. The accused, even if acquitted, risks being fired
from their job, losing their friends and other relationships,
having their property vandalized, and being harassed by those
believing them to be guilty.